By now you’ve probably seen that the Seattle Thunderbirds are this year’s U.S. Division champions. The Everett Silvertips led for much of the second half of the season, but the T-Birds surpassed the Tips two weeks ago and have won 11 straight with three games remaining.
Everett will play host to either Portland or Spokane in the first round of the playoffs beginning next week Friday at Xfinity Arena.
However, first the Tips must deal with Wednesday night’s match-up with the Chiefs. The Tips thus far have a 7-2 edge over Spokane in their head-to-head meetings and we’ll see if Everett can continue that trend.
For my story in Wednesday’s paper I looked at Everett’s success in its “three-in-three” weekends. The Tips have been very successful in those Sunday games – finishing 5-1 – but head coach Kevin Constantine would prefer not to have played so many three-in-threes in the first place.
“You grow your habits so that under the most stressful situations your habits keep your game in order,” he said. “And fatigue is another (area) where if you have bad habits they will surface. If you’re tired and have good habits they’ll continue. I would hope a little bit of it is staying on top our details and on top of our habits, but I don’t know that.”
Said forward Carson Stadnyk: “We just stick to our systems. Obviously three-in-threes aren’t a whole lot of fun, especially on the road. Your body just gets tired and drained. You just stick to what you do best.”
Stadnyk also acknowledged the help the Tips sometimes received in the form of scoring output from different players that seemed to surface at times during Sunday games. This past Sunday Brian King and Yan Khomenko scored goals in the 3-2 win over Portland.
“It’s huge when those guys can fill in and fill that role and score goals for us,” Stadnyk said. “We need that to happen in the playoffs too, which will help a lot in the long run and can advance from round to round.”
The Silvertips skated for about an hour Tuesday, which is about the most amount of time they spend on the ice these days as they look to conserve energy. Brycen Martin was a full participant after being out since leaving Everett’s 2-0 loss at Seattle Feb. 27. Dawson Leedahl and Tristen Pfeifer did not practice though Leedahl did skate on his own after practice.
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